In many situations, objects in an environment can be detected at a sensor-data processing system which processes sensor data representations of the environment which are generated by one or more sets of sensor devices coupled to the computer system.
In some cases, the sensor data processing system can be included in a vehicle, where the vehicle can be autonomously navigated through an environment based on sensor data representations of the environment which are generated by one or more sets of sensor devices included in the vehicle. Based on the sensor data representations, a control system included in the vehicle can navigate the vehicle along one or more various driving routes which avoid intersection with various dynamic elements, static elements, etc. located in the environment.
In some cases, utilizing sensor data representations of an environment to navigate a vehicle includes processing the sensor data representations to detect, in the representations, objects located in the environment. For example, where a sensor data representation of an environment includes a captured image of at least a portion of the environment, the processing can include detecting an object in the captured image. However, in some cases, accurately detecting objects in an environment based on sensor data representation processing can be insufficiently responsive and excessively expensive for ideal use.
In some cases, one or more sensor devices included in a vehicle can generate a sensor data representation of at least a portion of the environment, independently of interacting with any portion of the environment. Such sensor devices can be referred to as passive sensor devices, and the sensor data representations generated by the passive sensor devices can include passive sensor data representations, which can include one or more images of the one or more portions of the environment. Such images can indicate, for various portions of the environment represented by various sets of pixels of the image, various features of the various portions of the environment, including one or more of color brightness, etc. In some cases, one or more sensor devices included in a vehicle can generate a sensor data representation of the environment based on interacting with a portion of the environment. Such sensor devices can be referred to as active sensor devices, and the sensor data representations generated by the active sensor devices can include active sensor data representations. In some embodiments, an active sensor data representation of an environment includes indications of depth of various portions of the environment from one or more of the active sensor devices. In some embodiments, an active sensor device includes a depth camera device.